The smell of sage fills my room. It’s just the incense. I’m saving the bundles I bought at Craft Barn for the actual ceremony. Now I’m sitting cross-legged on a rug on my floor, a smoking incense burner on either side of me, and my face is painted with black and red Halloween makeup. I’m wearing only a pair of shorts and my medicine bag.
The rug, about four feet square, is an off-white color with a black medicine wheel on it. It is the wheel of life, outlined simply in black—a circle divided into quarters with thick lines indicating the four directions. I sit in the center, facing North. The North quarter of the wheel is white; East is yellow; West is black; South is red. I do not fully understand the wheel, but I know that each direction represents a different phase of life. Since my vision quest, I have begun facing North during meditation. This is the direction of adulthood.
On a shelf above my bed, a small stereo plays a Yeibichei song. It’s on repeat so the song will not stop. The chant, recorded in the 1930s, rises and falls, rises and falls, playing a repetitive, melodic sound.
I’ve painted my face with an arrow pointing up from my chin, around my nose, and between my eyes, its tip aimed toward the sky. It symbolizes my conscious thought rising up from my body. Small cougar tracks—not drawn very well—mark Onawa’s path from my hairline down my left cheek and neck to my chest, ending over my heart.
I hope Onawa will come to me.
Rolled in a sock in the back of a dresser drawer is a plastic bag with a few dried pieces of peyote. I was tempted to use it, just a tiny piece under my tongue, but even a small piece can produce a psychoactive response for several hours. I’m already suspended from school. No way I can let Mom come home and find me “stoned” on my “Indian drugs.” The incense, music, and symbols will be enough.
Hands folded in my lap, I close my eyes and try very hard to clear my mind. It isn’t an easy thing to do. Aimee keeps creeping in. Her smile, her red hair, her emerald-green eyes. Then I think of the scratches on her perfect skin, the dirt caked under her eyes, and the horror she must have felt as the dust storm chased her.
I focus on my breathing. In … out … in … Thoughts dissolve and crumble away. The sound of the music and the smell of the burning sage become muted and vague. Out … in …
“Onawa.” I whisper it into the darkness behind my eyelids.
In … Eyes in the darkness of my mind. Green eyes. Out … Aimee? No. Feline eyes. Feral, but not malicious.
In …
“Onawa.”
She’s there. Her golden face looks back at me, illuminated by the light coming from her green eyes. Around me I feel space closing in, pressing against me as Onawa looks at me impassively. There is a message in her eyes, but I can’t read it, not with the very air squeezing me.
Then I get it. Danger. There is danger all around me.
The pressure lessens a little. Onawa’s way of letting me know I’m right.
I continue to breathe. Out … in …
“What can I do?” I ask without words. It is just a thought I send outward, toward the eyes.
Onawa looks away from me at the same moment that I feel a gentle heat in my chest. I follow the cougar’s gaze and see a vague line of people standing nearby. The line fades in the distance. I feel a kinship with these people I do not recognize. The warm feeling in my chest grows as I look at them. One by one, they turn to look at me, and I see that they all have my face.
“Are they … my ancestors?”
Onawa turns her attention back to me and the line of people retreats into the darkness.
“Aimee?” I ask.
A fire appears above Onawa’s head. The fire is Aimee’s hair, though. I know this. There is a woman tending the fire. The woman looks like Aimee.
“Her mom?”
Onawa doesn’t answer.
“Who is the River Man?” I ask.
The fire and woman break apart and fade away. The air presses around me again, but now it is cold and smells like a stagnant river. There is a feeling, something that can only be evil—ancient, nameless evil. I feel panicked, suffocated, and suddenly afraid. Then the feeling is gone.
I tell myself to breathe.
In … out … in …
The smell of incense comes to me. There’s a sound. Not music. Something else. Onawa’s glowing green eyes dim. I grope for focus.
“Don’t leave me.”
Out … in …
“Alan Whitedeer Parson! Listen to me!”
Onawa’s eyes blink once, twice, and are gone. There is only the smell of sage and the sound of silence. I open my eyes. The room is filled with electric light. My windows are squares of darkness behind my angry mother.
“What the hell are you doing?” she demands.
“Meditating. Did you turn off the music?”
“That chanting? Yes, I turned it off. What is all over your face and chest?”
“Paint.”
“Wipe it off. There is a cop downstairs. He wants to talk to you.” The anger flickers for a second. “What’s going on, Alan?”
“A cop?”
“Put some clothes on and come downstairs.” She has wood shavings in her hair and she smells like oil and sawdust. Her face is pale, and her eyes show more fear than anger now.
“Okay.” She starts to walk away, around me and toward the door. “Mom?” She turns back. “I don’t know why the cop is here. I promise … Unless it’s about my fight at school …”
She nods her head once and leaves the room, closing the door.
I get up, and the movement is anything but graceful. My knees are stiff and my legs want to cramp. I put my hands on the edge of my bed and stretch my legs behind me. My cell phone is on the bedspread. The red light is blinking; I have messages. I pick it up and check. Six messages, all from Aimee. I check the most recent one.
PLEASE CALL ASAP!!!
I have missed calls, too. From Aimee. Something is wrong.
Mom is downstairs with a police officer who wants to see me.
I pull on some sweatpants and a black Rob Zombie shirt. It isn’t until I walk past the mirror on my dresser that I remember the facepaint. I step into the bathroom to scrub off the paint that can be seen on my face and neck, then go downstairs. Mom and the cop, a pot-bellied blond guy with a pair of chins and a buzz cut, sit at the dining room table. Aunt Lisa isn’t around.
“There he is,” Mom says. “I’m sorry he made you wait.”
“That’s okay,” the cop says as he gets to his feet. He’s a few inches shorter than me but outweighs me by at least a hundred pounds. He extends a meaty, sweaty hand, and I shake it as he says, “I’m Deputy McKinney, Alan. Can I ask you a few questions?”
“What about?” I ask.
“Sit down, Alan,” Mom insists. The cop settles back into his chair, and I think of a turkey squatting on a nest. I sit across from Mom, facing the deputy.
“You were in a fight today at school, weren’t you?” he asks.
“Yeah, I guess. It wasn’t much of a fight. Three guys jumped me in a bathroom. I only got one hit in before the teachers broke it up.”
“It looks like they worked you over pretty good.”
“It looks worse than it feels,” I tell him.
“You know the boys who did it?”
“Sort of. I mean, we’ve only been in Maine since Saturday. I know two of them from classes, and Blake is in cross-country with me. He’s my girlfriend’s ex.”
“That’s Blake Stanley?”
“Yeah.”
“The other two boys? Do you know their names?”
“Chris and Noah, I think. I don’t know their last names.”
“Have you seen them since you left school today?”
“No.”
“Are you sure?”
“Yeah.”
“You were suspended for the fight?”
“If you know about the fight, you know I was.”
“Alan,” Mom warns. “Answer him.”
“Yes, I was suspended. Three days.” I look at Mom while I say it.
“What about the other boys?”
“I don’t know. Everson said three days was the required suspension for fighting. I assume that’s what they got.”
“Did you come right home after you were suspended?”
I swallow and can’t look at Mom. I focus on a small mole on McKinney’s temple instead. “No. I went to Craft Barn and Bergerman’s Lumber and to the hospital first.”
Mom gives a frustrated sigh. “I told you to come straight home.”
“I had things to do.”
“Alan, can you prove your whereabouts between about one PM and four PM?” the deputy asks.
“Why?”
He ignores my question and repeats his own. “Can you prove you were at Craft Barn and the lumberyard and the hospital?”
“I don’t know. I guess. I have receipts.”
“I’d like to see them.”
“They’re upstairs. You want me to get them?”
“Please.”
I try to act calm and uncaring and cool, but my heart pounds harder than my feet as I throw myself up the stairs and into my room. I grab my jeans off the floor and fish out the two receipts from a hip pocket, then go back downstairs. I hand them to the cop as I sit down and watch him study them.
“Sage, and what’s this?” he asks. Sweetgrass shows up as “Sweetgss” on the receipt.
“Sweetgrass.”
“The weed? Why’d you buy that?”
“An Indian thing,” Mom says. “His father was an Indian and Alan tries to be.”
“I am half Navajo,” I say, and don’t care that I sound defiant. “I burn the sage and sweetgrass like incense.”
“I see,” Deputy McKinney says, but it’s obvious he doesn’t. He looks at the lumber receipt. “Tarps and … granite?”
“Yes.”
“What are those for?”
Damn. I do not want to go here. Mom will blow a gasket. Maybe not now, not in front of the cop, but later.
“More Indian stuff ?” he asks.
“Yeah. For a sweat lodge.”
“Sweat lodge?”
“It’s like a sauna in a tent,” I say.
“Oh.” He looks at the two receipts for another minute, then puts them aside. “The receipts put you at the stores at about one thirty and a quarter after two this afternoon. You say you went to the hospital?”
“My cousin’s there. She’s a patient.”
The deputy looks to Mom, who nods confirmation. “Courtney Tucker, my niece.”
The cop nods. “She’s okay?”
I wait for Mom to answer, wondering if they’ve gotten word about Courtney’s recovery. “She seems much better, from what I heard just before you got here,” she says.
“I’m glad to hear it,” McKinney says. “Your cousin can confirm that you were there?” I nod. “Anyone else?”
“Aimee.”
“Aimee Avery?”
“Yeah. I met her there. She was already in the room with Courtney.”
“Anyone else? Did you talk to any nurses or doctors, maybe a receptionist?”
“Nope. Well, actually there was a nurse standing there when I got off the elevator. What’s this all about?”
The deputy takes a deep breath and looks at his thick index finger as he draws circles on the white tablecloth. “We pulled Chris Paquette out of the Union River late this afternoon. He’s dead. Noah Chandler was there, too. He’s in the hospital now. Hypothermia and shock. He can’t talk to us yet.”
I stare at the cop for a long time. His gaze is on his finger, but I know he’s watching my reaction in his peripheral vision. This is crazy. “You think … what? I drowned Chris?”
“What time did you leave the hospital?”
“I don’t know. A little after three.”
“Where did you go then?”
“I took Aimee home, then came here. I’ve been upstairs in my room since then.”
“What have you been doing up there?”
None of your damn business. I want to say it. I open my mouth to say it, but I can feel Mom thinking I better not say it. “Meditating,” I say.
“What’s that? Like praying?”
“Yeah. Like praying.”
“Do you use drugs for that? LSD? Pot?”
Oh. My. God.
I shake my head. “No.”
“Aimee found Noah in the river, looking for Chris,” the cop says. “Then she found where Chris’s body was trapped underwater.”
“Oh no. Is she okay?” Now it’s my turn to stare him down, to demand answers. “Is Aimee all right?”
“She’s fine.”
“I have to call her. She’s supposed to come over tonight. She wants to meet my mom.” I look from the deputy to Mom, then back. “She’s okay? You saw her?”
“I saw her. She’s fine.” He hesitates, then asks, “Alan, I’ll ask you one more time. Be honest with me. Did you see those three boys again after school?”
“No. Was Aimee— Wait. Three? You only mentioned the two at the river.”
“We can’t find Blake Stanley.” His voice is dead and flat, not quite accusing, but not not accusing, either.
“You don’t really think I did something to them, do you?” I can’t believe it.
He shrugs and his face softens a little. “Not really,” he admits. “Even before this.” He waves at the receipts, making the folded bits of paper flutter. “But, considering the circumstances, I had to ask.”
“Thank God,” Mom says. Her shoulders sink inward as the tension falls off her. Did she really think I’d done something like that? Why? How could she even think it?
“I should go and leave you folks to your dinner plans,” McKinney says. He fishes in an unbuttoned shirt pocket and pulls out a crisp white business card that he lays on the table by the receipts. “If you think of anything that might help, please call me. Chris’s mom … she’s not taking this well.”
“No,” Mom says. “What mother would? I’m so sorry for her.”
I nod. I’m sorry, too. Another river death. Another newspaper story for the school librarian’s collection. If we fail, me and Aimee, how many more will there be?
“A lot of people die in that river,” I say. I say it more to myself, but the cop and Mom both stare at me.
“What did you say, son?” McKinney asks. I hate it when men who are not my father call me “son.”
“The river. A lot of people have died in it. The librarian at school has a folder full of old newspaper clippings about it.”
McKinney nods real slow, like I’ve revealed I know some deep, dark secret about his little town. Maybe I have. This is Maine. Maybe the whole damn state is like some creepy old Stephen King story. “I guess so,” he says. “Well, I should go. We’re still looking for Blake. Please call if you think of anything. I can show myself out.”
He leaves us and I sit still, waiting for Mom to start griping about the suspension, about me not coming home after school. She doesn’t, though.
“Did we bring all this bad luck with us from Oklahoma?” she asks.
“It was already here, Mom. I think it’s been here for a long time.”
She doesn’t respond. She looks so sad. I reach across the table and take her hand.
“I’m sorry, Mom. About the fighting, and not coming home like you told me to.”
She only nods.
“You talked to Aunt Lisa? Courtney is better?”
“Yes. Even her face has cleared up. All the tests are negative. They’re going to send her home tomorrow, but she needs to stay home the rest of the week. Someone’s supposed to stay and keep watch over her. Lisa was going to.”
“I can do it,” I say. “I mean, I’m going to be home, anyway.”
“That might work. Are you hungry? Your friend is coming over?”
“I already ate.” I don’t like lying to Mom, but she frowns on the idea of fasting. “Aimee wanted to come over. I don’t know now. She’s been calling and texting, but I didn’t know it.”
“You had that chanting stuff up too loud.”
“I guess. Can I go call her and see if she’s okay and coming over?”
Mom nods, so I race back up the stairs.
Aimee answers on the second ring. “Alan! Where were you? Are you okay? Oh God, I was so worried. Chris Paquette—he’s dead. I found him. I found him in the river.”
“I know, Aim. I know. Are you okay?”
“You know?”
“A cop was just here. He thought I might have done it.”
“Are you serious?” She sounds as shocked as I was.
“Yeah, but it’s okay now. I think. He left. He said he was convinced I didn’t do it, but … whatever. Are you okay?”
“I’m okay. Just freaked. I want to come over.”
“I’ll come get you.”
“Okay. Umm. I’m not sure Dad will let me go. But can you come anyway?”
“Yeah. I’ll be there in a few minutes. Mom doesn’t seem as mad as I thought she’d be. And she wants to meet you. Ten minutes?”
“Okay.”
“Aimee …”
“Yeah?”
“The cop who came to my house? He said Blake is missing.”
I don’t really ask Mom’s permission. I just announce that I’m going to pick up Aimee as I head for the door. She doesn’t protest—at least that I can hear before the door closes behind me. I make it to Aimee’s house in seven minutes and am getting out of my truck in her driveway when a white van with a satellite dish on top of it slams to a stop in front of the house. A woman with a microphone and a man with a video camera spill out the sliding side door and rush at me like rabid linebackers.
“Are you here to see Aimee Avery?” the woman screams at me as she crosses the lawn in ridiculous high heels and a beige skirt that’s too tight to allow her to run as fast as she wants to. “Do you know about the boy pulled out of the river?”
I turn away from them and catch a glimpse of Benji looking through the curtain in the front window. Big man hands pull him back and the curtain falls into place.
The newswoman is beside me now, shoving the microphone under my nose like it’s an ice-cream cone. Her cameraman stands behind her, pointing his lens at me. This is what I wanted a week ago. I wanted to be the football star, with the media surrounding me. Now I just want to swat the microphone away and break the camera.
“Were you a friend of Chris Paquette?” the woman asks, her voice shrill.
“Leave me alone,” I say. “Leave Aimee alone. Go chase an ambulance.” I turn around and make for the porch, but she follows.
“What can you tell me about Chris?”
The front door of the house opens a crack and Aimee’s hand motions me forward. I sprint up the three stairs. The door opens and I slip inside. Aimee slams it behind me and throws herself against me, talking into my chest.
“Those people won’t go away,” she says. “They’ve been parked up the street, just waiting for something to happen. I’m sorry. I should have warned you.”
“It’s okay,” I tell her.
“He sure does have some long hair,” Benji says.
“Benj,” his dad says, but he’s grinning. So am I.
“Can you come over?” I ask Aimee, then I look at her dad. “Is it okay if she comes to my house? My mom’s there and wants to meet her.”
“I don’t know,” he says. “Aimee’s been through a lot today. I think some rest—”
“Dad? Please?” She lifts her head from my chest and looks at her father. “I’ll be okay. I won’t be gone long, and Alan will bring me home. Won’t you?”
“Of course. Yeah.”
“What about our paparazzi out there?” Gramps asks.
“Here.” I press my keys into Aimee’s hands. “You just go straight to the truck and get in and lock your door. I’ll block them while you run.”
“Alan,” her dad warns, “don’t do anything stupid. Don’t break any cameras or push them down or anything.”
“I won’t.” I peek out a corner of the window. The reporter and her lackey have retreated to the van. They’re sitting in the front, talking. He’s not holding his camera. “Okay,” I tell Aimee. “We’ll have a few seconds to get to the truck before they can get out of the van. You ready?”
She nods. “Bye, Daddy.”
“Alan, be careful with her,” he says, his voice almost a plea, like he’s lost her.
“I’ll guard her with my life, Mr. Avery. I swear it.”
“Whoa. That’s deep,” Benji says.
“Let’s go.” I open the door and guide Aimee in front of me like she’s a blocking tackle not moving fast enough to get out of my way. I maneuver her through the door with my hand, my eyes on the defenders scrambling to get out of the van with their equipment. “Come on, Aim, we gotta move.”
Aimee jumps off the porch, sags for a moment as her bruised leg threatens to give, and then she’s up and loping for the truck. I charge straight at the cameraman, wearing my game face. He stops and looks around his camera like what he was seeing in his viewfinder couldn’t possibly be right. He starts backing away, almost tripping over his own feet. The newswoman drops her microphone to her hip and moves to the side.
Aimee makes it into the truck, so I break away from the newspeople and jump into the driver’s seat. Aimee has the key in the ignition. I fire up the Ford and drop it into reverse before the news team can recover. As we roar out of the driveway, I see Benji jumping into the air, throwing up a victory fist, while Gramps holds the curtain open and laughs.